two poemsA Bowden

Someone keeps me well only because I touch their money. No real happiness will ever be actualized while I am part of the reason behind why I have survived.

I strongly believe conflict needs to be embraced as a type of interpersonal healing.

(Where was I convinced I was reprehensible?)

The intake office of a women’s domestic violence shelter has no ac. It has been disguised as one of many port warehouses. Without windows. Remember, being warned about women infiltrating the building often to beat ex wives of-or sisters of their boyfriends and husbands.

Thought: How do I protect myself from myself when I am capable of patriarchal violence too?

Where did I see blood move with momentum across a level floor?

Everyone sweating watching this weeks beat down. In the middle of the food line for dinner. Right as the daycare aids bring the children back in.

Is there an art in timing the dismantling of a woman?

This is where I learned to always readily examine and explain my anger.

Which now appears to be a power move. Wish I could go off more often and say sorry, then hand everyone I treated unfairly summer fruits.

Back when I was meditating in the smokers gazebo. I held my temper to listen to them plan my 21st birthday party. In between laughing about the children of the attacked mother crying during the fight they yell offers.

They offered to cook me yuca. I said yes.

The quicker, the better.

My mother would round us up to go downtown in the stale weather to smell the air at 5 am.

We. Us. Half asleep.

Getting breakfast at the construction worker food trucks. This location would be demolished over or under a year. I was part of it going. Walking my mother home from work or to pharmacies for my medicine. For my brother's medication. For us.Once my vision I broke it by falling backwards from the top of a swing set. People who watched from below remarked forever about the sound my head made against the ground. Out cold.

The lot of swamp turned into a park and ride.

The smell of Florida trees and water: creatinine tests. Within me there is something thankless about significance.

Hot dogs already steaming against brushed steel against the smog. My mother holds unto me and my baby brother-he is pulling. Tugging in the direction of hot food on the way to pay an electric bill we "ran up" by going to the bathroom at night + having to turn the lights on.

What do you know then? How did you get to think a thing about living then? Thru loving slaughter of the slave you brought to market. Spinning. I know already the price of my being and want in on the profit.

He. I. My mother.

Remember her saying, "This is your lunch and your dinner and you're going to split it."